Bite us, Apple: Samsung hauled in $8.3bn in Q4

South Korean shiny things rival had a fat Christmas

Samsung Electronics has released its pre-earnings guidance ahead of revealing its full figures for 2012, and the topline figures for the quarter show that money has been pouring in for the South Korean tech titans.

Sales for the last three months of 2012 brought in approximately 56 trillion won ($52.7bn) for Samsung with an operating profit of 8.8 trillion won ($8.3bn). That's a healthy rise on last quarter, when Samsung had an operating profit of 8.1 trillion won ($7.6bn) on total revenue of 52 trillion won ($49.9bn).

Christmas is always a fat quarter but it means operating profit has risen $650m in just three months - a 8.64 per cent rise.

It's likely Sammy's Galaxy phone and tablet range have performed strongly, we'll be chewing over the figures when they're out.

Samsung Electronics Ltd is a broad-based business that gathers profits in several sectors. It has two units: one includes general consumer electronics - air conditioners, TVs, fridges, phones, computers and telecoms systems. And the second, Device Solutions unit, comprises component manufacture of storage, semiconductors, LCDs and other LED division. ®